Pre-IPO AI companies.
The frontier AI labs are all still private. Here is what we know about their valuations, funding, and IPO plans, and how investors can access shares before any listing.
Anthropic
Claude
$965B post-money (Series H, May 2026)
Anthropic builds Claude, a family of frontier large language models. It confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC in June 2026 and is valued at $965B post-money after its Series H round. Amazon and Alphabet are its largest strategic investors. No IPO date, ticker, or price has been set.
OpenAI
ChatGPT, GPT-4o
$340B (2025 funding round)
OpenAI is the maker of ChatGPT and the GPT family of models. It raised at a $340B valuation in 2025 and has discussed a potential IPO, though no filing date has been set. Microsoft is its largest backer and cloud partner.
Mistral AI
Mistral models
$6B (2024 Series B)
Mistral AI is a French frontier AI lab building open and proprietary language models. It raised at a $6B valuation in 2024 and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and others. It is one of the most closely watched European AI companies ahead of a potential IPO.
Perplexity AI
Perplexity (AI search)
$9B (2024 funding round)
Perplexity AI builds an AI-native search engine that answers questions with cited sources. It raised at a $9B valuation in 2024. The company has become a notable challenger to Google Search and is frequently cited in AI IPO discussions.
Scale AI
AI data and evaluation platform
$14B (2024 funding round)
Scale AI provides training data, evaluation, and RLHF services used by frontier AI labs including Anthropic, OpenAI, and the US government. It raised at a $14B valuation in 2024. A Scale AI IPO has been discussed but no timeline has been confirmed.
How to access pre-IPO AI shares.
Most frontier AI labs are not publicly listed. Accredited investors in some countries can buy pre-IPO shares through secondary markets, which facilitate transfers from early employees and early-stage investors. These transactions carry significant risk and are typically limited to accredited investors.
Platforms like Forge Global, EquityZen, and Hiive specialize in private-company share transfers. They require identity verification and accreditation checks. Minimum investment sizes vary but are typically $10,000 or more per transaction.
None of these are guaranteed paths to IPO shares. A company may never go public, may change terms, or may pursue a direct listing or acquisition instead. Pre-IPO investing is high risk.
See our broker comparison for the secondary-market platforms we cover.